Friday, November 03, 2006

MTV: K-Fed Explains Why He And Britney Kept Second Baby's Name Under Wraps

NEW YORK — When Britney Spears had her second baby in mid-September, there were more rumors than reports based on fact.

Some news outlets, tricked by the pop star's recent pink-themed purchases, assumed the child was a girl. Others declared it to be a boy. Either way, they had a 50-50 chance of being right. But the one thing no one could guess was the child's name.

While Spears stayed mum on the subject, a well-placed source close to the family confirmed to this outlet and possibly (probably) others a few days after the birth that the boy's name was Sutton Pierce (see "Britney's Baby: It's A Boy!"). And Brit's second child was so named — until the birth certificate filed at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's office surfaced in late October, revealing that the celebrity spawn was actually named Jayden James. Why, then, you might ask, did Spears and husband Kevin Federline allow such a blatant misrepresentation of the facts to continue? Why didn't they simply issue a birth announcement or other statement about the child, and let that be that? Why maintain silence?

Well, they're not silent anymore. In New York on Thursday to do publicity and promotion for his just-released album, Playing With Fire, K-Fed opened up, however reluctantly, about why he and his pop-star wife hadn't cleared up the confusion sooner. "It's the first time that I've ever really sat down and talked to somebody about it," Federline said. "Everybody's been asking me the name and wanting me to verify and all that stuff, and it becomes a little bit tiring. I don't understand. Why can't you wait until we're ready to talk about it? Why does it have to be right after the baby's born? Why can't it be two, three, four months later? You know what I mean? Why right now?"

Perhaps it's just our high-paced information-age society, but for a celebrity to delay several months after birth to release a name, let alone an image, of a baby just makes people clamor for confirmation even more. Remember the rumors surrounding Suri, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' daughter, because they kept her away from the public eye for four months? Not that Jayden James is suffering the same fate, because for all the world knew, he was Sutton Pierce.

"We just had a baby and didn't say anything," Federline said. "We didn't make the name up — that's the media for you. They try to capture all that and get people interested in our life, so I figured they made the name up to go with one of their stories, and it blew up everywhere. It was funny. It almost proves a point: They don't really know everything like they seem to think they do, you know?"

Federline said he and Spears plan to release a photo of their second child, his fourth, eventually, "When it was time." But for right now, they want private time with Jayden James.

"You feel that you owe them a piece, you know? The world, people, whoever. You owe them a piece of something, and you want something for yourself," Federline explained. "If everyone knows everything about you and what you're doing all the time, you don't have any piece of private to yourself, and that was one thing we wanted to keep for us, for right now. It's our child."

If all this seems like much ado about nothing — considering how easily, quickly and proudly the average person might post photos of their newborn on a blog, without it seeming an issue of privacy — Federline wishes his life were more simple. "All that stuff is fun," he said. "But our situation is a little bit different. We wish it was the same, but it's not."